Some completely missed the mark
Arguably the most eerily prescient on this list, Spike Jonze’s movie predicted the rise of AI companions. While online dating existed at the time, the 2013 film's portrayal of a deeply intimate human-AI relationship seemed far-fetched. Fast forward to 2025, there are apps offering personalized AI interactions and even reports of individuals marrying their AI partners.
In this dystopian future, rising sea levels have submerged most of Earth, forcing humanity to fight for survival amidst starvation and violent outlaws. While 2500 may seem distant, the accelerating effects of climate change make the film's vision of a flooded world feel increasingly less like science fiction.
In Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic, a spaceship intercepts a distress signal, leading to a deadly encounter with an alien life form. While encounters with extraterrestrial-like forms still seem a distant reality, the film's exploration of themes like trauma, physical abuse, and the violation of bodily autonomy resonates deeply with contemporary concerns.
A classic sci-fi story that blends epic mythology with some serious political commentary. It follows a gifted young man thrust into a dangerous power struggle over a precious resource on a distant planet. This tale of political intrigue and personal growth offers a glimpse into a possible future where control of vital resources could lead to conflict and chaos.
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The stop-motion animated film depicts a dystopian Japan where dogs are exiled to a garbage-filled island. While seemingly a children's story, the film tackles themes of prejudice and xenophobia, with some dogs envying the benefits those of purebred status enjoy. It also carries a powerful political undercurrent, criticizing the manipulation of fear and the persecution of minorities.
In a reimagined version of Pinocchio, the movie tells a futuristic tale of a robotic boy yearning for human love. While the film depicts a bleak future with submerged coastal cities due to rising sea levels, the reality of climate change is sadly unfolding much sooner than 2101.
Renowned science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who significantly influenced the genre by portraying robots as potential collaborators rather than threats, inspired this film. Asimov's stories delve into complex ethical dilemmas, such as the possibility of robots holding political positions and the potential for an AI-driven global conflict.
Kubrick's '60s masterpiece showcased artificially intelligent computers and even a sleek, handheld device that some see as the precursor to the iPad. Ironically, the actual year 2001 witnessed the dawn of the internet age, the birth of iTunes, and the early days of Apple.
In a dystopian Detroit, a dying cop is transformed into a cyborg police officer by a greedy corporation. While real-world Detroit in 2015 saw a decline in violent crime, it still faced significant challenges. Advancements in law enforcement technology were limited to car and body cameras, a far cry from the film's advanced cyborg technology.
In this film, Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel to 2015, a "future" that now feels quaintly retro. While this sequel accurately predicted flat-screen TVs and a nascent form of social media, it missed the mark on flying cars and hoverboards. The internet's absence in the 1989 film can be attributed to its true impact becoming evident only in the mid-'90s.
Ridley Scott's dystopian classic depicts a world where bioengineered humanoid robots rebel against their human creators. The film eerily anticipated the blurring lines between humanity and AI, exploring the ethical dilemmas of creating sentient beings. While robots were present in 2019, from healthcare to household appliances, the true AI revolution was still unfolding.
Set in a (now close) dystopian future with a stark divide between a city's wealthy elite and oppressed workers, the film powerfully portrays the dehumanizing effects of industrialization. While a full-scale class war hasn't materialized, societal unrest, exemplified by the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, highlights the simmering tensions beneath the surface.
Bruce Willis portrays a time traveler from a post-apocalyptic 2035, where humanity is ravaged by a deadly virus. While the COVID-19 pandemic brought the film renewed attention, critics argue its true message lies in the impending climate crisis, mirroring the UN's warnings of severe and imminent ecological collapse.
Despite offering clues, the film remains ambiguous about its precise year, with references ranging from 2025 to 2036. It portrays a shadowy freedom fighter who plots to overthrow a tyrannical government, with critics highlighting the film's chilling relevance to our current political climate, where the erosion of civil liberties is a growing concern.
Rebooting the franchise after a 30-year hiatus, the film depicts a post-apocalyptic world where a tyrannical figure rules over a desolate landscape, where water and fuel are scarce and the land is poisoned. This high-octane action film eerily reflects our world's growing environmental concerns, where climate change threatens to exacerbate resource scarcity.
The film imagines a world where supernatural abilities are used to predict and prevent crime. While the film's reliance on superhuman skills may seem fantastical, the increasing use of technology, big data, and AI for surveillance purposes raises concerns about potential abuses of power and the erosion of individual freedoms.
In the film, humans use virtual avatars to explore and exploit a distant moon in 2154. While full-body immersion may still be a distant reality, digital personas are commonplace in gaming and social media. The film's themes of colonization, resource exploitation, and the oppression of indigenous cultures also tragically mirror contemporary realities.
This sci-fi classic envisioned a future filled with space travel, alien civilizations, robots, and flying saucers. Though created in the '50s, the film's special effects were groundbreaking for its time and some of its predictions for the year 2201, while not yet fully realized, continue to inspire and challenge our imaginations.
The classic series follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise crew, tasked with exploring the galaxy "to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." Set in the 23rd century, humanity has achieved faster-than-light travel thanks to advancements facilitated by the Vulcan civilization, a benevolent alien race that has shared its advanced technology with Earth.
Sure, the robots are cute, but the message is bleak. Earth has become a desolate wasteland of garbage, abandoned by humanity. The remaining humans, obese and completely reliant on technology, are effectively controlled by a malevolent computer system.
In a world where apes have evolved into the dominant species, humans are relegated to a subservient role. While the year 3978 is simply too distant for our lifetime, the film's exploration of themes like prejudice, oppression, and the abuse of power remains eerily relevant today.
The erotically charged sci-fi film follows an astronaut on a mission to stop an evil scientist. In 1968, Barbarella had to save the universe alone, but thankfully, female action heroes are no longer a rarity.
The film depicts a 2027 where humanity faces extinction due to global infertility and rampant refugee crises. While its apocalyptic vision may seem extreme, refugee crises are a pressing reality and global fertility rates have been declining since the '50s, with projections suggesting they will continue to fall throughout this century.
This remake reimagined the classic story, setting it in 2028, where a fallen officer is resurrected as a cyborg. While this might have seemed far-fetched, recent developments suggest otherwise. In 2024, an AI-powered robot assisted the Baltimore Police Department, and Dubai has already begun testing robot police officers, with plans to integrate robots into 25% of their force by 2030.
The franchise depicts a future where machines wage war against humanity, culminating in Judgment Day in 2029, with the second installment providing the most vivid glimpse of this war-torn future. While we can only hope that machines never turn against humans, technology's rapid advancements raise questions about the future of our relationship with artificial intelligence.
In 'Interstellar,' Earth reaches a breaking point, forcing humanity to seek life beyond our planet. This leads a former NASA pilot on a perilous mission to find a habitable planet beyond our solar system. Real-world NASA's ambitious plans to send astronauts to Mars as early as the 2030s suggest that humanity may not have to wait as long as the film predicted to begin exploring the cosmos.
The film boldly predicts that by 2199, we'll discover we're living in a simulated reality, controlled by sentient machines. Our increasingly digitized world, where our data is constantly collected and analyzed, makes one wonder if the film's prediction is truly that far-fetched.
Space travel to Mars is also commonplace in this film. Iconic "Johnnycabs"—autonomous vehicles with robotic drivers—feature prominently. While today the movie’s depiction of these drivers may seem simplistic, modern self-driving cars with AI and voice recognition systems share a similar concept and are already here, way earlier than the predicted 2084.
Uncovering how much of the "future" we have lived
Recent years have seen dramatic changes unlike any other—in technology, politics, artificial intelligence, and the ever-growing threat of climate change and environmental disasters.
Many classic sci-fi movies have imagined futures that seemed far-fetched, yet here we are, living in a world that's starting to resemble some of those predictions. While time travel remains firmly in the realm of science fiction, this gallery will take you on a trip through a sci-fi movie timeline. Ready to find out how close we've come to these visions from the past? Click on!
A timeline of movies about the future: where are we now?
Uncovering how much of the "future" we have lived
MOVIES Science fiction
Recent years have seen dramatic changes unlike any other—in technology, politics, artificial intelligence, and the ever-growing threat of climate change and environmental disasters.
Many classic sci-fi movies have imagined futures that seemed far-fetched, yet here we are, living in a world that's starting to resemble some of those predictions. While time travel remains firmly in the realm of science fiction, this gallery will take you on a trip through a sci-fi movie timeline. Ready to find out how close we've come to these visions from the past? Click on!